Category: music

“The awful outcome of these Cold War games is that anyone could plant a rumour and nothing could be disproved. Every musician had dealings with the ‘organs of state’ and we have no way of knowing which of them weakened and succumbed. What endures in my mind is this vision of a closed room in which members of a piano trio, a string quartet or a symphony orchestra would look around and wonder, which of my friends is about to betray me? That is the ultimate epitaph of Soviet culture.”

“Even if a mediocre hall had resulted, the avoidance of the usual cultural-political imbroglio would have been newsworthy. But Boulez Saal is a masterpiece of its kind. It consists of two elliptical-shaped seating areas, one on the ground level and one suspended above, each tilted on a different axis. The floor of the upper ellipse also curves up and down, giving the hall an unfixed, fluctuating profile. As in Disney Hall, bright wood tones—Douglas fir, cedar, and red oak—predominate. The capacity is six hundred and eighty-two. Listeners are never more than fifty feet from the musicians, who are often placed at the center of the auditorium. Those in the front row could turn pages, if asked. In all, the atmosphere is convivial and unshowy, despite the flamboyance of Gehry’s swooping lines.”

For one thing, what is a concept album, anyway? For another, here’s what Paul told a biographer about the Beatles’ mindset when making it: “We really hated that fucking four little mop-top boys approach. We were not boys, we were men. It was all gone, all that boy shit, all that screaming, we didn’t want any more. Plus, we’d now got turned on to pot and thought of ourselves as artists rather than just performers.”

“Orchestras can no longer rely on old-fashioned subscription models. Music education is not guaranteed in public schools, and in a positive sense the entire history of classical music can all be streamed online for free. So the world I knew, and have worked in, and will continue to work in will not be the one you move through in your careers. … Together we have to forge a more profound and timely connection between our music, the music that we love, and the rest of the world.”

In the 2015-16 season, the Met took in 66 percent of its potential capacity. Some numbers are improving a bit more substantially: The company’s paid attendance rate, which includes discounted tickets, rose to 75 percent this season from 72 percent in 2015-16. And the company said it attracted 80,000 new ticket buyers this season, up from 74,000 the year before. The challenge is turning those newcomers into regulars.

Why this building? What about its design, its location and the implicit social messages embedded in its architecture have made it so successful? Carsten Brosda, a senator in Hamburg’s state government and head of its cultural authority, says location is a primary factor in its success. “I was never a fan of iconic buildings because so many of them are rather generic,” he says. But Elbphilharmonie is exceptional, located in the geographical heart of the city, on a site that demanded some exceptional public use. “There were architects saying this is on the verge of being unbuildable, but that is what makes it unique.”

The Orchestra hasn’t had a series on national radio since 1990. Now ,”starting with a broadcast Monday night and continuing three times a week for at least the next year, concerts recorded in Verizon Hall will be carried on SiriusXM radio, a paid service with a monthly fee, to listeners across the U.S. and Canada.”

Ravi’s daughter Anushka Shankar: “Here he was aged 90, not yet content to rest on his laurels but still wanting to push the boundaries to further horizons. It was simply another area in which my father was able to imagine something that hadn’t been done yet – an Indian opera. Such a thing had incredible scope for creating bridges between two wonderful traditions from the east and west.”

Right now, it feels like a work “with grand social and political reverberations. Yet, for its composer, the work arose from deeply personal motives.”

“We are used to talking about composers who live on through their music. But music teachers enjoy an almost genealogical immortality through their students, regardless of those pupils’ later fame. Because music making is practiced through the body, teachers imprint their students with the specific physical traits of their craft: gestures, tics and preferences that those students may in turn pass on to yet another generation.”